Thursday Rant: Sour Grapes

TR #2: Sour Grapes
When we fail we all have a similar response: We look for something to blame.

In basketball we blame the referees, in school we blame the teachers, in relationships we blame the other person, all the time completely glossing over the real subject of the blame. It was like the ref was watching a whole different game, that teacher just doesn't like me, she was always nagging at me, etc, etc, etc. We're really good at taking things that were slightly annoying at the time (a bad call, a misunderstood grade, a bad habit) and blowing them up to be the reason we failed. Frankly, those are excuses and they grow old quick.

Tennis is a sport begging for players to make excuses. It is played outdoors, in all the grandeur of God's creation, and all the havoc that it wreaks on a simple game of knocking a small yellow ball back and forth. The wind, the precipitation, the sun's evil glare when we are serving. Layers of nature that are all useless at deflecting our blame.

Then there are the courts, with all their glorious cracks and crevices. Bad bounces can absolutely provide a glorious scapegoat, especially if they happen at the right time. Oh, and my favorite tennis excuse, the tape. It either loves you or hates you, but it can definitely feel the player's wrath. I've known some players to talk to the tape, yell it at, or in a simple goodwill gesture, give it a little kiss. But how many times it is at fault for our losing of a point.

Of course, when the elements and the court conditions fail, there is always a more villainous cast to paint the blame on. The other team and anything associated with them. Their fans (forgetting that every team has fans who get a little too excited at excitable times in the matches), the way they play ("they just dinked the ball, it wasn't even real tennis!"), or the way they call the lines.

The thing is, I believe that tennis is about dealing with all of these things. I've had players go crazy with anger because of the other teams fans (in one match my second year coaching, I had to pull someone off the court for turning around and yelling at the other fans). I've had players beside themselves because their long practiced strokes and power based game was just undone by someone who ran everything down and lobbed every other shot. I've dealt with players who were crying because of how badly they thought they'd been cheated. And these are all things that these players have had to learn to deal with and grow from.

Because the only thing you can control in the game of tennis is yourself.

If you are mad about something, you can choose to handle it in a respectable way. But it is important that you deal with it at the time. Don't cry to me about line calls after the match, especially when you didn't bring it up with me during the match or were not willing to call for a line judge. That's what those rules and procedures are for. You control your actions during the match, and at the time. Then you accept responsibility for those choices afterwords.

Again, there will be some things we can never control. Sometimes we will get cheated, sometimes the fans will be inappropriate, and sometimes the wind will blow our "perfect" shot out, but isn't life like that too. We can only control ourselves. We won't cheat, we'll try to teach our parents to not cheer double faults, we'll pray that the weather is kind. But that's all we can do.

So instead of worrying about all that stuff, let it roll. Control what you can control, play your game of smaggressive tennis, and shake hands at the end of the match. And leave it there. Don't bring any excuses off the court.